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‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

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Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#281

Post by rhizome »

staplers wrote: post #70
abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

The same could be said about the internet in general. Take a stroll away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and you can find some really interesting places with extremely insightful and meaningful content. The problem is that a majority of people are just absolutely manipulated by their emotions and dive head first into the feedback loop designed by social media to provide an addictive stream of never-ending enga…

The problem is that a majority of people are just absolutely manipulated by their emotions and dive head first into the feedback loop designed by social media to provide an addictive stream of never-ending engagement.

Wow, harsh. My sense is that the problem is that these other sites are simply not very findable, and Google search results have been getting steadily and measurably worse over the last several years.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#282

Post by pessimizer »

reddit - anarchic garbage = metafilter

metafilter has 12,000 users, not mansions, yachts and tennis star wives. No one is asking metafilter mods about reddit, they're asking people who got rich off reddit, because they respect people who get rich, not people who have well-run, wisely-moderated forums. This is because well-run forums are common, and reddit.coms are not.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#283

Post by agumonkey »

coatmatter wrote: post #249
agumonkey wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last month I was kicked from twitter, since I was trying to be more productive I didn't trigger the reset process. I did spend less time refreshing some timeline. But 1) I did miss some of my "audience" (feels like an audience more than friends, but I'm twisted) 2) I'm now way less aware of lots of news. Two days ago was the first time in years that I thought to myself "what ? I didn't know that" about an event. Not…

> 2) I'm now way less aware of lots of news. Two days ago was the first time in years that I thought to myself "what ? I didn't know that" about an event. Not sure if this is bad or good, but it's an important difference. I would suggest it's good. Most news in my view is "junknews", even from reputable outlets (including independent media). Why? Very rarely is any news actionable in any way. It's likely that very li…

I do agree to some extent, I mostly despise the mass medias. Especially when you're tech saavy and with the web, they're mostly blurry and late to everything. Also they do create emotional bubbles on stuff that do absolutely nothing (say greece debt, which was the end of the world, then onto the next fad). So I often wanted to disconnect from this. But still my surprise about that event I missed was high and genuine. Maybe I could "quantify" that as higher surprise newsfeed process :p

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#284

Post by cup-of-tea »

alex_young wrote: post #137
cup-of-tea wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Anonymity allows you to express unpopular views that you wouldn't be able to in real life. But the existence of downvoting basically defeats that, except in unpopular echo chambers, of course.

What if your unpopular view you wouldn't express in real life is something abusive towards others? i.e. trolling.

Who decides what is "trolling"? I think there should be moderators but that it's possible to see what moderators have done and impossible for them to actually delete posts. That way each person can decide if they are happy with the moderation being done.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#285

Post by coatmatter »

spike021 wrote: post #194
staplers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said about the internet in general. Take a stroll away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and you can find some really interesting places with extremely insightful and meaningful content. The problem is that a majority of people are just absolutely manipulated by their emotions and dive head first into the feedback loop designed by social media to provide an addictive stream of never-ending enga…

Really? I find "really interesting places with extremely insightful and meaningful content" all the time. If not for Facebook or Twitter I likely would've never found The Athletic, a newer news media website for sports. I doubt they'd have just advertised on ESPN or some other sports broadcast channel website. Some of the content there has been incredibly insightful and meaningful. I even find articles from there on…

Most of the very interesting publications (including The Atlantic) I've found have been through Longform.org or Digg. The latter might be remembered as the site that came to a demise the same time as reddit's rise, but they've since reinvented themselves to become a curator of news features and other amusing tidbits, picked out by reasonable editors (on average).

That said, all this is for nought - what is it that we actually do with said day to day consumption? Ever since I started asking myself two questions for any issue - 1) "What's the issue/problem?" 2) "What am I going to do about it?" - I've realised that most of what I pick up is largely for pointless entertainment and time wasting (not to mention that very few friends truly care about me knowing more "stuff"). With that in mind, I've started to curb my news junkie habit with the goal of focusing on more important stuff.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#286

Post by stcredzero »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #179
1337biz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is not your save space. Neither is reddit. If everbody were thinking your way, those posts would be downvoted into obliviation. I am sorry that you have to face the fact thst many people don't share your personal value judgement of what is considered to be racist/sexist.

I think this is an oversimplified view, especially when it is nearly a known fact reddit's votes are manipulated by automated imposters/"troll farms"/etc. The internet is not my safe space, but I think it's very reasonable for the subreddit about Canada to be moderated as a "safe space" free of racist ramblings. The people holding those opinions can go elsewhere, for example to The_Donald, where any dissent is quickl…

I think it's very reasonable for the subreddit about Canada to be moderated as a "safe space" free of racist ramblings.

The problem with even mild forms of censorship, is that bad actors can combine it with emotional manipulation and media manipulation to push their own agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LofV6cJzILA

Right now, bad actors on the far left are using outrage as a tool to push their own authoritarian agendas. In this, they are aided and abetted by the far right. Both extremes thrive on outrage, especially the outrage that comes from intellectually dishonest censorship.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiRnbNT5uE

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#287

Post by airstrike »

optimuspaul wrote: post #261
eanzenberg wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's hive-mind is ultra-liberal.

which makes sense. It seems to have been built on libertarian principles and rejects authoritarian principles. not sure how much more liberal you can get.

You're mixing up liberal with libertarian.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#288

Post by lghh »

rhizome wrote: post #281
staplers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said about the internet in general. Take a stroll away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and you can find some really interesting places with extremely insightful and meaningful content. The problem is that a majority of people are just absolutely manipulated by their emotions and dive head first into the feedback loop designed by social media to provide an addictive stream of never-ending enga…

The problem is that a majority of people are just absolutely manipulated by their emotions and dive head first into the feedback loop designed by social media to provide an addictive stream of never-ending engagement. Wow, harsh. My sense is that the problem is that these other sites are simply not very findable, and Google search results have been getting steadily and measurably worse over the last several years.

> Google search results have been getting steadily and measurably worse over the last several years

I have an inclination to agree, but how is that measurable?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#289

Post by rightos »

pessimizer wrote: post #266
rightos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally delete anything that questions straight up communist views. Read their sidebar. I don't think that's exactly "in the eye of the beholder".

They're a straight up communist sub. Why wouldn't they? You seem to be complaining that a board game site bans you when you repeatedly post "board games are stupid, you should play video games."

Yes, I'll admit to that to some extent, but it's a toxic environment when a subreddit like that regularly appears on the front page yet disallows any sort of significant discussion. For similar toxicity reasons they hid The_Donald from the front page, which I'd say is about equally as toxic. So why's the treatment different here?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#290

Post by SamUK96 »

austincheney wrote: post #4

Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit (please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit) : https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...

That blob is (ironically) extremely ideological/generalising. Doesn't mean I don't disagree with it though, maybe just the approach/tone.

I believe you may be grouping strong (and maybe not always right) opinions with flat out chaotic evil trolls (whom there are actually extremely few).

It's been intruiging to grow up witnessing the appearance of the term "troll", initially designated to IRC and other net spammers, to it's present and increasingly meaningless, nebulous definition of "mean people on the internet". It's a big difference, which your linked blob quite interestingly evidences :D

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